


the shafts of prophecy

by betony



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everyone Lives (sort of), F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-19
Packaged: 2017-12-23 23:49:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/932536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betony/pseuds/betony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My brother told me I could not change what was to come.<br/>I proved him wrong the day I kept a firebrand from burning Troy to the ground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the shafts of prophecy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ViaLethe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViaLethe/gifts), [ars_belli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ars_belli/gifts).



> For ViaLethe and ars_belli, who both wanted Aeneas/Cassandra--I hope you'll excuse this bit of self-indulgent additional angst for the two. Quick background note: Aisakos is the son of Priam and his first wife, who is the prophet responsible for getting Paris sent to the hillside to die; he did, in fact, either die or transform into a diving bird after his lover/wife, died. Othryoneus and Coroebus are both doomed suitors of Cassandra; Othryoneus features in the _Iliad_ and Coroebus in the _Aeneid_.  
>  Title from Tryphiodorus, _The Taking of Ilios_.

When I was only a girl, my half-brother Aisakos, prophet of Troy before me (Father will tell you he drowned in despair when his river-born love died, and you must nod and agree, but know, but no, he dives still covered in feathers instead), took me to sit with him on the highest walls of Troy one morning and said: “Little Cassandra. You share my burden, don’t you, sister? To speak the words of Apollo the Foreseer for all of Troy to hear?” 

I stared at him in confusion. Back then the only predictions I ever made were about what our nurse would serve us for dinner every night, and inevitably it would be goat when I swore it would be sweet suckling pig, stringy boar when I promised pheasant. It made the others very unhappy; Deiphobus, in particular, who’d always let his hopes rise high only to have them dashed down to the ground, and one terrible night swore he’d never believe me about anything again. 

But even then I trusted my brother’s word; everyone knew Aisakos was always right, always believed him, because Aisakos was loved by the gods and he spoke their truth. 

He squeezed both my hands tightly. “Cassandra, my dear one, you must hear me, and remember: It’s no fault of yours if you can’t make a difference. The future’s not yours to change. Never take that guilt upon yourself, as well: _You can't alter what is to come_." 

Except he was wrong. 

I proved that the morning I stood proud on the hill where Hektor and Andromache plighted their troth only last night, and I clutched my love’s hands, and I became a princess of Troy no longer. I proved that when on my wedding day, my father promised me one favor, and I asked—demanded, really—that a small insignificant cowherd be barred from the competition he would hold later that day, and Father--oathsworn--had to agree. 

I proved Aisakos wrong the day I kept a firebrand from burning Troy to the ground: my burden is so much greater than anything he might have imagined. 

* * *

The night I met Apollo, he asked me: What do you wish, pretty maid? 

I didn't ask for prophecy, as the stories would have it. Why should I? Already I was making predictions with startling ease, since the night Helenus and I spent in the temple to hone our skills. 

I said to him: _I wish to truly make a difference, to change the fates of gods and men._

I received it. More fool me. 

* * *

What is my love like? 

Well might you ask. The blood of gods runs through his veins, but that means nothing in this day and age, when half the populace of Troy claim descent from the gods; why, they say even my brother Troilus is Apollo’s son in truth! To my love, it means nothing. He’s not so tall, and built light and nimble, body suited more to a scout’s work than those of the warriors who stand over Troy. His tongue is clumsy, and his passions overwhelm him. 

Destiny wraps around him like a shroud. 

(Is it Othroyneus, whose suit my father favors? It could be. 

It is not.) 

But I kept that back, I saved him from the fate, I did, when I swore my vows to him! 

We ruled together over his father’s lands, and bought peace and prosperity with our reign, and flocks of children besides. I like children; but more do I like the smells of clean water and baby’s skin, when I’d bathe my baby sons and daughters; and mud and grass and sweat, when my husband came to embrace me at night. 

(Is it Coroebus of Phyrgia, who stands at noble Mygdon’s side? It could be. 

It is not.) 

We were happy. 

I have to remember that. 

* * *

But once again it’s Helen who’s the cause of Troy’s downfall. 

She always is, in the end. It was what she was born to, I think—that when the great swan waylaid Leda, it was only to that end. It certainly makes more sense than being the most beautiful woman in the world. Who is to say who the most beautiful at any time can be? Could not it as easily be Cassandra of Troy stolen away by Agamemnon and his Achaeans, and Aeneas in pursuit to recover her? (For he would, wouldn’t he, if only for friendship’s sake? 

I thought as much.) And what’s more, what’s _enough to satisfy me for a night_ in a serving girl so often becomes _pure and precious beauty_ in one of royal blood in men’s eyes. I said as much to my father-in-law once. 

He was offended. He had been trying to pay me a compliment, I think, calling me the most beautiful of Priam’s daughters. My husband offered excuses, and that at least he excels at. He can smooth over arguments with his voice, when his impetuousness does not overcome him, and for that he will become a leader of men. He half-convinced me to believe him when he said that I didn’t mean most of what I said, that it was my heart and not my words that men should observe, that his father himself had loved a woman he did not fully understand 

Oh, how can anyone ever doubt that I loved him? 

So. It was Helen who was responsible—Helen, and the shipping monopolies Troy clutches. They would have said that it was all because she wanted a new bronze mirror to satisfy her vanity, and couldn’t get one. Actually it was because Sparta had experienced a terrible famine for the third year in a row, and while Menelaus was content storing up the palace granaries, the Spartans were Helen’s people, and she would not let them starve 

A more beautiful commander than Agammemnon, and a more merciless one, too. 

Then the war lasted much less than ten years; Priam my father, since the welfare of his son and the honor of his family was not at stake, was much more amenable to compromise, and Hektor my brother lived long enough to take the throne and secure it for his Astaynax after him. But Helen was adamant on providing for her people, and ensuring that such a plight would never come upon them again. She left us with nothing, as she brought Achaea all the power and allies it could ever need. 

The city grew poor as it lost its wealth, as merchants took their wares to more powerful ports, and eventually it collapsed into itself. Poverty, and shame, ended the rule of the house of Priam, and the last son of our house was followed by jeers from his subjects as he walked among them. 

They abandoned the city at last, after it was populated by beggars and the desperate; and years later, grew another one above it and called it Wilusa, but that collapsed as well; and the next; and the next, until everyone forgot that the splendor of Troy had ever existed, and that the house of Priam had ruled it well. 

Everyone lived, you see. Everyone was forgotten. 

* * *

And this, too, I remember: Golden Aphrodite coming to me when I was an old woman, wrinkled and gray, lying in the arms of my love. In our hearts then there was not even enough pride to mourn for Troy, and what it had been; it had struggled and choked like a poor soldier left to die on the battlefield, and there had been nothing to do but watch it and wish someone would have given it a mercy-blow years before. 

Aphrodite said: "The time has come, daughter, to make use of my brother Apollo's gift. That is why I give you a choice, a chance to--as you said--make a difference." 

I said, "I don’t understand." 

So she explained: "All this that you have lived and loved and felt was no more than a mere possibility as to how things could be, if you would have them so." 

"No!" I said, utterly horrified. "How can you say that? I have ruled as Queen for years--I have born children--I have loved your s--" 

She merely looked at me, harsh and remote as a hawk's yellow stare, and I knew she did not lie. 

"Now before you, Cassandra of the keen eyes, lies the choice of Thetis’s son—for glory and destruction, or endurance and oblivion. But he chose his own fate, dear daughter, and you decide for Troy." 

I understood at last, and wailed, for what was to come. "How can you be so cruel?" I begged her. "How can you not understand?" 

And she smiled sadly at me—do you know how lovely even a sad smile from Aphrodite’s lips can be? How foolish, my friend. You of all people must. –and said that she understood far more than I could ever think she did. 

So I closed my eyes, and I made my choice, and can you guess, my friend, what it was? 

My husband’s choice would have been much like one you might make—exactly the one you might make, in fact, were you given a circumstance like that. Survival at all costs is key, come what may, he said; far nobler to forget Troy and linger than cling to it and be lost, as well. Why must you look surprised? You will survive, my friend; you will go on, and you will remember us. That much gives me strength for what else must come. 

My choice, however—my choice was…. 

I woke up in my own bed, young and strong and alone. The next day my brother Paris put his name forward in our grand tournament, all to recover his precious bull. I didn’t say a word. 

I lived a life where I had everything I ever wanted, and I gave it up so my city would live instead—if not in this one, in another, the world of the bards, the world where all our human strivings are worth something after all. 

Cruel of the gods to ask it of me; cruel of the gods to give me sight to see that future at all. That was his true revenge, after all. So that is why mad Cassandra, blessed by prophecy through brother's blood and serpent's tongue and god's gift, raves: because this was all my doing from the start. 

* * *

How good of you to listen to me for so long, my friend Aeneas—No, don’t look like that, I am well. My sadness was short-lived, as it always is. It’s only the sun that causes me to prattle on so. 

(It has always been the Sun, since I was a girl too foolish to realize what I was refusing.) 

By all means, go back inside. Hektor and Andromache are waiting, and they might take offense if you do not join them. I would prefer the cool air outside for a while longer. Yes, yes; I'm quite well. Please, go ahead, and don't worry. 

Before you go, though, know this: how glad I am that you are with me! 

How glad I am that you, at least, don’t remember.


End file.
